A Forbes magazine intern reports that “Twitter is Not Loved in Europe“:
Despite Twitter’s success in the U.S., the three-year-old company’s service hasn’t caught on in Europe. According to Twitter’s search tool, Twitter Scan, there is one account under Tesco, the U.K.’s largest retailer, but it has only one outside comment so far. The same goes for financial services firm HSBC, which has 18 followers but no status updates. Most European companies think Twitter is a time waster, and many haven’t even heard of the service. British Telecom says it doesn’t have a Twitter account and doesn’t plan to open one. A spokeswoman for energy firm Total says that Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie has no idea what Twitter is. Nestle’s communications manager says using Twitter “just never came up within the group strategy.” In general, experts say Europeans don’t latch on to new social networking technologies as quickly as Americans.
This bizarre attack on European companies seems to ignore a few things. For starters, Twitter was going just fine in Europe until they cut the SMS service, unlike in the US where it remains. But that hasn’t stopped it. We now have celebs galore on Twitter in the UK at least, and some are even conspiring to bring the masses on board. Meawhile, we like Twitter so much in Europe that we are creating our own versions. Just Ask Shoutem in Croatia and Blip in Poland.
How’s about this? We hate Twitter so much in Europe, a global Twitter Meetup is being organised direct from London. Yeah, we so don’t love Twitter!
In a blog post Loic Le Meur says: “I don’t think most european companies dislike Twitter that much, they just do not get the realtime web yet, give them some time.” Quite – it’s not unlike where blogging was a few years ago. But Twitter travels a lot faster than blogs.
And what of the article? They can’t seem to make up their minds if we get it or not.
Loic re-tweets the Forbes writer, Melissa Bounoua (@misspress on Twitter) , who says her initial title was less controversial: “RT @misspress: @loic you’re totally right Loic. My Forbes editor changed my title which was: “How to twitter for European CEOs”
A couple of hours later the title was changed to “Why Europe’s CEOs Should Twitter”. Change of heart Forbes?
As for big companies not using Twitter: Well, the charge is ridiculously out of context. This article is like asking a US company why they weren’t using SMS to communicate with customers 5, or even 10, years ago. Because you can bet European companies were, and US firms almost definitely weren’t.
UPDATE: A comment by Nicole Simon (below) is worth repeating: “I have a list of over 130 german politicians twittering (and they are just beginning) as well as over 130 PR people, major german magazines have adapted twitter (with huge followership) … and that is just in the last few months. Btw this weekend there is even a dedicated microblogging conference in Hamburg.”
Get out of London, get out of Paris. Get to the provinces and the small towns. get into the french speaking, Lithuanian speaking, portuguese portions of twitter and the social media. Let’s see whether people really are interested in twitter.
As an english person of course you’d be led to believe that twitter is popular. You have over 10,000 people in London alone using twitter. Now step out to Portland, Dorset and see how many twitter users are active there.
Twitter is not popular outside of the microcosm yet. Just because big names like ross, branson and others are on twittter doesn’t mean you’ve got an active group of users. It just means people heard about twitter, created an account but then not followed it up with actual tweeting, especially not in sufficient quantity for it to be considered anything more than a fad yet.
I say this as a former London twitter user now living in Switzerland where people are still rather pessimistic about twitter and it’s value.
Of course people have heard about it but it fails to have any relevance until the time when their friends in the physical world come and participate.
The intern isn’t wrong in what he/she says.
Cut, but you didn’t address the point in the post about SMS. Twitter is now 3 years old. Go ask a US company if they were using SMS for customer service 3 years ago. I bet a lot of them weren’t because SMS was slow to take off in the US. Now many use Twitter for cust. serv. So they are a little ahead of EU firms? Who used SMS first in this instance? The Europeans did.
Twitter is loved by all. Those who hate it don’t really understand how useful twitter can get!
Applications are being built by the minute. A lot of developers may earn money over time because of twitter.
No other company has been so selfless until twitter appeared. The whole API thingy got a new meaning due to twitter.
Go Twitter
P.S. I support twitter and the API so much not only because its good but also since I have a site dedicated to it
Twitter is fresh, probably too fresh for most people
Mike…spot on…bad research..can’t believe they print this crap, Forbes should take some blame…utter rubbish.
This is just PR guff to get people talking
How may US CEO’s use Twitter as a total %. If you went to ACME Manufacturing Plant in Podunk, Missouri d’you really think you’d see a Twitterverse?.
Outside the Silicon Valley echochamber and its echopots around the planet there is still very low penetration, the service is far from mass adoption.
@Rob: spot on…bad research..can’t believe they print this crap, TC should take some blame…utter rubbish.
Another example of socmed mavens handwaving to no-one except themselves.
You’re first commenter is far closer to the mark.
How does what Forbes say translate to ‘hating?’ I don’t see it.
I’m with Alan; PR. In fact it’s given me a really good idea for a press release!
I assume, as usual, it is the language problem for conducting proper research. And i can tell by reactions from readers to my twitter book, that especially the people outside of the microcosmis of the echochamber get onto twitter.
When search by location still worked it was amazing to see how many people where twittering from different locations in Germany, a number never seen in blogging. I have a list of over 130 german politicians twittering (and they are just beginning) as well as over 130 PR people, major german magazines have adapted twitter (with huge followership) … and that is just in the last few months. Btw this weekend there is even a dedicated microblogging conference in Hamburg.
Neither blogging nor other media has seen taken on that fast. Same for the companies: they are taking their first steps in twittering, while at the same time being cautious about it.
Btw: I take a non twittering company over a twittering one any day as long as they give me the information / access I need from them.
Nicole
As an American living/working in Europe, this article REALLY got under my skin. In addition to my own twitter @MountainDan, I also tweet the official @fatfoogoo twitter stream. We’re a european company, and didn’t even have to explain what twitter was when I made the pitch. Everyone simply ‘got it’ and wondered why we hadn’t been tweeting all along. Granted, we’re in the tech industry, and might be slightly more ‘progressive’ but to apply this vision to european businesses in general is a bit shortsighted and unfair.
And the icing on the cake goes to Forbes for changing the article title hours later. Pick one gun and stick to it folks. FAIL.
@Jof – Lardy USA CEO’s hate PushupFu
Time will tell.
I think for people like myself working within the social media marketing arena, then we can see that there is a certain amount of truth here that the use and uptake of the social media tools such as blogging, twitter, video sharing etc does lag behind the US in the corporate world. The UK also approaches them in different ways.
This doesn’t mean that it’s unloved or unused – in many cases it’s simply that it’s just not understood. That comes down to education and companies (particularly in the current economic environment) seeing that this is the perfect time to engage more with their customers and potential clients. What an opportunity to steal a march over the competition!
So, perhaps in addition to debating it here, we should also be out encouraging more people/companies to try these tools so they can see the benefits they bring. Articles like the Forbes one merely makes that more of a challenge but in no way reduces the opportunities they offer.
I use both, Twitter and Blip and they are not the same. All those things why you hate twitter are note included in Blip
We have real time updates, tags, priv msg, media and many more…
If I had to look on them both right now I would say that twitter is a copy of blip, and a really bad one…
I know that’s not the main subject of this post but maybe that’s one of the reasons why people hate twitter so much? When you don’t go forward in the internet you’re commiting a suicide….
Twitter is making excellent headway in Europe, there are lots of early adopters and interest being stirred up. But it’s not quite there yet, not with businesses and not with the general populous.
Everyone I know who is non-tech or non-media hasn’t a clue what Twitter is when I tell them I use it.
I had a real surprise when I attended a social media seminar at a university last week. The speaker asked for a show of hands about what social media services people use. When asked about Twitter, only 3 people in a room full of hundreds had their hand up.
This included numerous Digital Marketing students, who I’d have expected to have definitely been early adopters.
Point is, the best times for Twitter are still to come, and I look forward to it this year, as the number of Europeans and people from all over the world swell to Twitter.
As for business users, I’m personally trying to champion the benefits, which they can get out of the service.
Spellcheck, please. Glass houses…
“This bizarre attack on Euroepean companies”
Ridiculous.
Even Hitler loves twitter:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/jan/12/twitter-digitalmedia
To add another nail to the Forbe ‘research’ (or perrhaps the BT press office’s credibility: BT does twitter. Ot at least, BT Tradespace does: http://www.bttradespace.com/
And they’re twitter account can be found here: http://twitter.com/BTTradespace
@warzabidul
There’s clearly an opportunity to have a better way of finding twitterers in your local area, and I think this is what you’re looking for.
I live in Suffolk and would love to find more twitter users in my area, but this is difficult. Yes, you can do a search on a particular town name (if people have put that in their location), and there is also the Twinkle app/service, but I haven’t found an easy-to-use service that shows twitter users close to me. If someone knows of one then please get in touch!
Such a service could make a big difference to Portland [Dorset] too !
Sorry to break up the twitter love-in but Forbes are on to something. Unfortunately, those likely to read this blog will have heard off (and may be) into twitter, but the bog standard talk-n-texter is not, neither is the bog-standard company interested in that consumer. Since Twitter no-longer services users in the UK there is no point in the standard talk-n-texter using it or a company using the serviceto broadcast its micro msg (I mean if I have to go online to receive the micro-blog I may as well visit the site). Perhaps those in continental users are up for going to the web to pick up an sms but UK’s jo bloggs sure isn’t. Lastly as an early adopter I had too much work to persuade UK users to get on board, and the second the service stopped they drained away.
Hi Mike. I’m an active tweeter in Europe and while I have quite a few followers in Italy, Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe. They are mostly passive and have a twitter account because they thought it cool.
http://wisequeen.com/2009/01/20/swiss-start-up-camp-with-amazee/
I have and still do attend many tech events in Switzerland such as Tech crunch and including twitter dinners, which I travel to, blog about and post video on FB about. I am trying to organise the Twestival in Lugano, but we have a handful of tweeters and so I thought of twining with Milan. Still, although my site focuses on Euro startups the majority of my 100 or so visitors a day come from the US. I think you’ll find that language provides a reason for different lang groups to remain uninvolved or to form little closed groups.
So there’s more than a grain of truth in this.
Donna
Hey Mike – I’d point out too that Skype (based in Europe) have definitely heard of Twitter (in fact, we’re helping them hear people on it):
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=PeteratSkype
There are more of my thoughts on this here:
http://wearesocial.net/blog/2009/01/corporate-communications-radically-changed/